Marco Polo

Thryth

Marco Polo is the new restaurant which has opened in place of the previously popular "little elephant" Thai restaurant which vanished mysteriously over night.
The new owners have gone for the “Mediterranean” style although this mainly consists of Pizza and pasta, they are only a hairs breadth from Mangiamo’s, another Italian restaurant we had tried previously and so we were excited at the prospect of duelling chefs and so we thought we'd give the new comers a try.
Their menu is a little pricey compared to other Italians around and so we had high expectations and were looking forward to relatively good quality and tasty food.
For starters we ordered the stuffed pepper with mozzarella and the classically impossible to get wrong Minestrone soup which both came in at over £5 each. Both starters arrived hot and in good time, My stuffed “Pepper” was in fact half of a rather small green pepper filled with a very basic rice concoction sat in an unfortunately bland tomato sauce and covered in a cheap watery mozzarella that reminded me distinctly of one I had experienced in a horrid Turkish restaurant some time before. The “minestrone” was like none I had ever seen nor tasted and was as I now believe, In fact a poor attempt at Sehriyeli Sebze Corbasi, A Turkish soup (I’m seeing a pattern) made with tomato and vermicelli, but even at that, it was again bland and unfulfilling and came served with an extremely stale piece bread that I could only suppose was some sort of an attempt at a croûte by someone who had never seen or tasted one.
For the main course we thought we’d opt for what we though would be the safety of a pizza, I went for the meat while my better half opted for the Tuna. Again they were priced slightly higher than other local Italians and so we expected an authentic stone baked affair with mozzarella and quality toppings… What we in fact got were two stodgy slabs of what I can only describe as the worst “pizza” I have ever eaten and can say for certainly that I have actually eaten better pizza in the local takeaway! My “meat” pizza was over burdened with topping and the base was over an inch thick, unfortunately the base also happened to be a horrid chewy stodge and I don’t think that the toppings could have even be described as meat, one being a luminous red “pepperoni” with the texture of a smart price hotdog and the other being some curious white cubes of unknown origin with the consistency of jelly and very little taste. The tuna pizza was again the same base topped with tinned smart price tuna, massive wedges of undercooked red onion and some dry chewy and not so sweet corn, I could only imagine these “pizzas” being served in the worst of the worst takeaway located down some dirty back alley and was furious at then actually being charged restaurant prices.
The drinks menu was extortionate when added to the overpriced food menu and this compared to other better quality restaurants was the final blow, Even the lager rolled in at £4 a pint. Suffice to say that when the starters arrived I quickly decided to not even consider the house wine let alone any of the “wine menu”.
Throughout our “romantic” meal, we were also treated to a deafening dose of the nearby stereo system pumping out a couple of the latest “Thud thud thud” hardcore dance hits and later we were “serenaded” by an equally loud and inappropriate blast of Tarkan’s “kiss kiss” from what must have been the Turkish holiday mega mix.
As you can imagine by the time we had finished, which was less than 30 mins later I quickly dropped the dessert menu and headed for the door.

As a side note and so as not to give a completely unfair review, I was informed (after my meal) that it was in fact the regular chefs night off, Now if this was true I do not know, nor if it would have made any difference but his is for you to decide. Had I have known the consequences of this prior to ordering, I wouldn’t have bothered and I just hope that if you do decide to give them a fair trial that the “regular chef” is on duty and in good form!